Re: Contributing The SableVM Virtual Machine To The Harmony Project

Hi all,

Could someone summarize the differences between:
AL2 vs BSD or AL2 vs LGPL
in a few sentences.

Thanks,
David

On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 09:12:07PM -0500, Etienne Gagnon wrote:
> Hi all!
>=20
> I have been in informal discussions, lately, with the Harmony project,
> an "incubation" project of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).  If yo=
u
> have not heard of it, the Harmony project is an effort to create an
> independent implementation of J2SE 5 under the Apache License and to
> create a community-developed modular runtime architecture.  Here is the
> project's URL:
>=20
>  http://incubator.apache.org/harmony/index.html
>=20
> The Harmony project is rapidly gaining visibility, and has been
> receiving significant software donations from major industry players an=
d
> individuals, the most important being:
>  - IBM: core Java library classes and VM/library interface
>  - Intel: security, cryptography, javax.net and unit tests
>  - Archie Cobbs: JCVM
>  - Daniel Lydickto: Bootstrap JVM
>=20
> I think that it would be in the best interest of the SableVM project to
> participate to the Harmony project by adding our virtual machine body o=
f
> code to the pool of existing Harmony code, so that it could be mixed an=
d
> matched with the code of other virtual machines to create something
> bigger than all its parts.  The Harmony project would provide a levelin=
g
> playing filed for various VM developers to start working together,
> instead of wasting their efforts on separate individual VM implementati=
ons.
>=20
> Given the high quality of previous donations accepted by the Harmony
> project, I think that it would be an honor for our code to be accepted
> by their project.  But, in order to do so, two things must happen:
>=20
> a) I must get the permission of all copyright holders to "donate" the
>    code (more details later about this), and
>=20
> b) The Harmony project must accept the donation.  I will only propose
>    such a donation officially if I get the permission of copyright
>    holders to do so.
>=20
> A few technicalities.  The Harmony project does not require "Copyright
> Assignment"; it merely asks for the copyright holders to do 2 things:
>=20
> 1- License the code under the Apache License 2.0 (a very permissive
>    license):
>     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
>=20
> 2- Execute a Software Grant (which is a license to allow the ASF to do,
>    more/less, whatever it wants with the code):
>     http://www.apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt
>=20
> So, in simple terms: you would still retain your copyright on the code
> you wrote, but you would lose any control on the "donated" copy.
>=20
> Also, contributing the SableVM code base to Harmony would not mean the
> end of the SableVM project, far from that!  It would simply lead to the
> following development model:
>=20
> 1- The day to day maintenance of the general usage virtual machine
>    would be happen within the Harmony project.
>=20
> 2- The SableVM code repository would keep a synchronized copy of the
>    Harmony trunk as a root for developing new features and doing
>    research, and for development in sandboxes.
>=20
> Personally, I am quite excited at the opportunities.
>=20
> So, what do you think?
>=20
>=20
> Regards,
>=20
> Etienne
>=20
> --=20
> Etienne M. Gagnon, Ph.D.            http://www.info2.uqam.ca/~egagnon/
> SableVM:                                       http://www.sablevm.org/
> SableCC:                                       http://www.sablecc.org/



> _______________________________________________
> SableVM-devel mailing list
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> http://sablevm.org/lists/control/listinfo/sablevm-devel


--=20

---

David B=E9langer
Web page:   http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/
Public key: http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~dbelan2/public_key.txt